CRUISING: DESTINATION NOWHERE - Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism - page 115

Maine joined Alaska in passing state laws curbing cruise ship pollution. California,
with its long, varied coastline and strong environmental movement, has passed the strictest
rules against any waste discharge by cruise ships. The laws were sparked in part by a Crystal
Cruises ship that dumped 36,000 gallons of gray water and sewage in Monterey Bay. The
cruise line was able to claim, rightly, that it hadn't broken any rules. So the town banned
the Crystal Cruises ship from the bay in 2005. The California state legislature then passed
a law forbidding discharge of any waste whatsoever—treated or untreated, black water or
gray water, sewage waste or garbage waste, into California's coast waters by cruise ships or
other large vessels. The federal government through the EPA endorsed the law in 2010,
which gives the Coast Guard authority to enforce it.
Sweeting of the Royal Caribbean said the company's ships are being outfitted with ad-
vanced waste treatment systems that transform human waste into watery discharge that
is “as good as or better than municipalities.” At the same time, the industry has force-
fully opposed the Clean Cruise Ship Act, sponsored by Senator Richard Durbin, Demo-
crat of Illinois, which would require sewage and gray water discharges to be controlled
by the Clean Water Act. The legislation would also require cruise ships to use advanced
treatment systems and to sail beyond the current 12-mile limit before discharging treated
sewage.
The U.S. Coast Guard is charged with enforcing existing laws and standards in Amer-
ican waters, but it has done a lackluster job, largely because inspecting sewage from cruise
ships is close to the bottom of its to-do list. After the 9/11 attacks, when the Coast Guard
was absorbed into the new Homeland Security Department, its mission has been insist-
ently focused on “antiterrorism.” In theory, complaints about ships' discharge in interna-
tional waters are investigated by flag states like Liberia, Panama and the Bahamas, but they
rarely follow up. The Congressional Research Service study of cruise ship pollution rated
overall enforcement as “poor.”
That leaves the industry as its own enforcer. Terry Dale, of the cruise ship industry
group, said cruise companies obey laws and standards, often exceeding requirements, and
that they “fully respect our role as environmental stewards, otherwise the future of our in-
dustry would be in jeopardy. I would take issue with those detractors who say we aren't
taking it seriously,” he said in a telephone interview.
In some countries, cruise ships pose such an immediate danger they are under tight re-
striction. Antarctica has banned large cruise ships outright, beginning in 2011. The cruise
ships' heavy fuel oils were causing serious air pollution and, when spilled in an accident,
causing irreparable damage. In 2007 the cruise ship Explorer capsized in an ice field,
dumping 50,000 gallons of marine diesel fuel, 6,300 gallons of lubricant and 260 gallons
of gasoline into the ocean where it rests at a depth of 5,000 feet. Cleaning up in those
remote, freezing waters was close to impossible. With tourism quadrupling in the past dec-